Friday, September 12, 2014

While
many today would consider Islam to be a fiercely monotheist and purist
religion absent of all pagan roots an examination of the historical
record reveals a much more immediate past with several originally pagan
practices still being practiced today under the guise of monotheism.
Islam, like many other world religions, was created to unify a
disintegrated tribal region for purposes of power and was less a
revelation of one god then it was a form of henotheism masquerading as
monotheism. We will find that many fundamental Islamic practices such as
reverence and prayer toward the Kaaba, the very nature of Allah, and
the the Hajj to Mecca all find their way to pagan beginnings.

While other monotheist religions may have been influenced by pagan cults
in their beginning the difference in Islam is that these pagan
practices continue up until today, arbitrarily without explanation or
extensive scriptural support, and these ceremonies have not been purged.
This may come as a startling revelation to some, considering the
virulent strain of fundamentalist Islam that has risen to prominence in
the late twentieth and twenty first century preaching a strict
monotheism and intolerance or violence toward those who do not accept
the one true god “Allah.”

Pre Islamic History

Doctors Richard Hooker and Richard Hines of Washington State University paint a compelling image of the landscape of pre-Islamic history.
Before the Arabs became unified Arabia proper was comprised of warring
tribes bound together by no permanent central government. As no major
rivers ran through this region no large permanent cities became viable
prospects, with large settlements such as Riyadh only becoming recently
possible with modern technology. As a consequence the Arab peoples
became nomadic herders of cattle who oversaw the domain of large
pastures. For the purposes of this research we will focus on the
pastoralist Bedouin tribes
which comprise inner Arabia of the Pre-Islamic classical era and when
“Arabs” are referenced we are specifically not including Arab kingdoms
near the Levant and southern coast such as the Nabataean and Sabean
empires.

While at times the Arabs would momentarily unify to raid Persia or the
immensely wealthy Yemenite coast they mostly warred amongst each other,
especially in the form of caravan raids, for the Arabs were prolific
traders, and this was their primary source of wealth.

The commerce these tribes were concerned with was the Indian to
Mediterranean trade which passed through Southern Arabia on its way to
Byzantium. The Arab tribes served as intermediaries to facilitate such a
trade and profited as being couriers of such goods or by simply taking
up the warpath and raiding the goods from other tribes which tended to
cooperate.

Classical Era

During the time of Mohammed, what has come to be known as the classical
era, al-Arabiyya or classical Arabic became widespread and became the
language of poetry and culture, allowing for the soon to be transmitted
Koran. Muru’a or the Arabic equivalent to the Greek arête and Roman
virtus, the virtue of manliness and excellence, was soon hailed as vital
to heroic leadership. The cultivation of this virtue in tribal society
transformed the Arab people who already had a disposition to war into a
formidable expansionary force with a powerful leadership, a framework
which would make it easier to equate kinship ties with military
hierarchy and allowed for the formation of a sprawling Arab empire in
years to come.

“Ilah”

Pre-Islamic
religious practice was comprised of two principle sources: local
animist tradition in the form of grove, rock and meteorite worship as
well as veneration of a vast pantheon of gods mainly derived from
western Semitic sources, to which the tribes celebrated a form of
henotheism locally. When the Quraysh captured Mecca
circa 500 C.E. following in the wake of the recent Arab militarization
they proclaimed Hubal, the tribal head god who was known to have
subordinate to him his goddess daughters al-Lat (cognate to Allatu, the
Carthaginian underworld goddess originating from Ereshkigal), al-Uzza,
and al-Manat (the same goddesses who famously appear in the “satanic verses” of Sura 53), as lord of the temple city (Occhigrosso 394-397).
To the Quraysh this Hubal was often referred to as “Allah” for “Allah”
is not a proper name but actually a contraction of “al-” and “-ilah”
meaning “the god (Jeffery 85, Brill 302, Peters 3-41).” Even the
word “Ilah” has a deeper meaning as “Il” or “Ilah” refers to an even
earlier primeval lunar god worshipped by the Arabs which by the time of
the Quraysh had become a general name for “god.” According to Carelton
Coon “…under Mohammed’s tutelage, the relatively anonymous Ilah became
Al-Ilah, The God, or Allâh, the Supreme Being.”

This is not simply a matter of semantics: “Allah” does not mean “God”
but “the god,” the first implies that there is a singular god and second
meaning implies that this god is a god of prominence amongst others.
Allah was not a revelatory name as discovered by Mohammed but instead a
common term used by his tribe, and possibly the other tribes of Inner
Arabia, to refer to the chief god amongst others.

Following in Semitic tradition many Arabs named their children as
“servant” or “slave” of their chief god, the famous Carthaginian “Hannibal”
translates to “grace of the Lord (Baal)” (Baal = El) for example. One
such named individual was Abd Allah, Mohammed’s own father who died
before Mohammed was even born (Andrae 13-30). Numerous others were named
after “Allah” before the revelation of Islam occured including such
significant figures of Pre-Islamic history such as Quraysh kinsmen
Abd-Allah ben Djahsh, Ubayd-Allah, Abd-Allah ben Djudan and the sons of
Umar: Abd-Allah and ‘Ubayd-Allah. The presence of such names in the
historical record alludes to the notion that “Allah” was worshipped
before Mohammed’s time and was in reverence of the god Hubal (Peters
3-41, Brockelmann 8-10).

It can be conjectured that Mohammed chose “Allah” as the “God” of Islam
because the name rang true amongst his clansmen (Andrae 13-30) and the
other Arab tribes who had come to respect Hubal as the chief god of
Mecca, with the passing of time eventually centralizing the cult into
the belief that “Allah” had always been the one God. Surely when
Mohammed began referring to his new god as “Allah” it must have caused
no immediate alarm amongst his Arab brethren as the term was not then
used a proper noun but simply a substitute for a name of reverence
(similar to the western Semitic Baal which simply means Lord and is not
the proper name of the God being identified), in the case of the
Quraysh: Hubal. This ingenious use of language was only made possible by
a previous event in Pre-Islamic history which made the worship of Hubal
familiar to the Arabs visiting Mecca: the conquest of the city by
Mohammed’s tribe.

Worship of Stones and Idols

Connected with the worship of Gods was also the worship of stones and idols. When the Quraysh
captured Mecca they installed atop the Kaaba an idol of Hubal, marking
him most prominent amongst the reportedly three hundred and sixty god
idols of the Cube (Armstrong 11). For the next one hundred and twenty
years the cult of Hubal (up until Mohammed’s conquest of Mecca in 620
C.E.) was centralized and Arabs visiting Mecca during the Hajj would
have become familiar with the god’s prominent position atop the other
lesser deities represented at the holy city. A less likely report made
in Sarwar’s Muhammed the Holy Prophet claims that “Amr bin Lahyo bin
Harath bin Amr ul-Qais bin Thalaba bin Azd bin Khalan bin Babalyun bin
Saba” of Hijaz had placed the Hubal idol even earlier, four hundred
years before the birth of Mohammed (Sarwar 18-19). Regardless of
who installed the Hubal idol in its prime location at Mecca what is
surely known is that the Quraysh named the god chief amongst others. The
Quraysh would have expected visiting Arabs to pay special homage to the
“Lord” of the city upon their pilgrimage and to respect Hubal as the
chief god while within the city. While these provisions did not destroy
the polytheism of Arabia it may have reinforced henotheistic notions
which would allow for a shift to monotheism to be not as startling as it
would have been in past times and would have made Arabs familiar with
the name of “Allah,” a phrase which by that time had become synonymous
with Hubal.

History shows that as societies become increasingly wealthy, literate
and militarily powerful they become increasingly monotheistic, a trend
which may have been increasingly apparent in the years approaching
Mohammed’s birth as made possible by the economic virtues of the
classical Arabic era. Mohammed’s declaration of Shahadah can be
interpreted as a final declaration of Hubal’s primacy and his
destruction of the idol cults within Mecca during 620 C.E. more of a
political showing of power rather than a religious statement. Mohammed’s
centralization of the cult can be paralleled with the King Hezekiah’s
religious reforms of the seventh century B.C.E., reforms with religious
overtures more so designed to increase the monarch’s power from tribal
overlord to king proper by means of national ideology (as proposed by
Professor Robert Beckford in his Channel 4 documentary Who Wrote The Bible?).

Pagan Roots

While the Islamic god has roots in the worship of the lunar god Hubal so does the veneration
of the Kaaba have ancient pagan roots. The original black stone which
the Kaaba was built around to protect was most likely a meteorite
connected with the worship of baetyli or sacred stones, a common
practice of the pre-Islamic Arabs. As the ancient Arabs primarily
worshipped gods representing astrological entities such as the moon, sun
and Venus, the principal deity before Hubal
being the worship of the lunar goddess al-Lat, these meteorites were
considered to be actual pieces of the gods themselves and the places
where they landed were considered the most sacred places of ancient
Arabia. These places were considered to be areas to which the spirit and
material world met, linking the heavens and earth, metaphorically
referred to as the Gates of Heaven (Armstrong-2 221). Other Kaaba
structures existed during the classical period such as the “red stone”,
the deity of the south Arabian city of Ghaiman, and the “white stone” in
the Ka’ba of al-Abalat (near the city of Tabala, south of Mecca)
(Grunebaum 24). The worship of these stones was not only connected to
the worship of primeval lunar gods but also even earlier animist
traditions in accordance with the belief in stone fetishes, magical
mountains, ponds, groves, special rock formations and “trees of strange
growth” to which the Arabs believed were possessed by spirits which
afforded them special protection or blessings in war and in economic
ventures, according to Grunebaum among others (Brockelmann 8-10, Van Ess 29, Martin 96, Rodinson 16-17).

It is likely that the Kaaba we know today, the one which houses the
black stone, was one of the few if not the only shrines to be
constructed out of stone and to which a major cult of worship developed.
Mecca would soon come to be known as a holy ground to which warring
tribes could meet peacefully and settle their differences (Grunebaum 18),
a practice which would lead to regular pilgrimages to the site, visits
which eventually become known as the Hajj. The Kaaba is mentioned by
several ancient historians including the second century C.E. historian
Ptolemy who refers to it as Macoraba, a “south Arabian foundation
created around a sanctuary” (Wensinck 318). The first century
B.C.E. historian Diodorus Siculus also mentions the Kaaba in his
Bibliotheca Historica saying “and a temple has been set-up there, which
is very holy and exceedingly revered by all Arabians (Gibbon 223-224).”

While Mecca was considered a sacred site during this ancient period it
had more implications as sanctified ground useful for peaceful
convergence than it had as a religious temple, the latter implication
was brought about with the Quraysh invasion and the primacy of Hubal in
an attempt at centralizing the tribe’s regional power (Grunebaum 19).
The Quraysh solidified the notion of the Kaaba as a religious temple
and also a major spice, leather, jewelry, blacksmithing, textile and
perfume (Heck) trading center (Armstrong-2 221-222) which greatly
increased the power and prestige of the tribe and organized yearly
pilgrimages to the site, formalizing the Hajj into a ritualized custom.

These arbitrary reverences based in pagan superstitions, goddess
worship, tribal infighting, idol worship and animism would come to form
some of the fundamental rituals of Islam, foundations which were
supposedly revealed to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel. In actuality it
can conjectured that Mohammed reinvented pagan institutions which had
already existed for hundreds or even thousands of years in hopes of
creating a seductive, tribally accepted imperial ideology designed to
form a strong unifying backbone for the Arab empire to come, to which
Mohammed was supremely successful.

2 comments:

It`s the ordinary period of the tourist industry in the holy cities of the Family Kingdom.About 3200 years ago, a Jewish prophet, Joshua(Yuushac) led the Jews, after Moses saved them from Egypt, to conquer Jericko(Ariixa) inhabited by the Palestinians. Joshua ordered his men to circle the town 7 times in 7 days and blow a trumpet 7 times before the conquest.The tourists are going to do the same process by circling the Ka`ba 7 times as did by the people in the area before the arrival of Islam.

There are so many contradictions and inconsistencies in the Quraan. I have been studying Islam all my life and recently became aware that learning one book with so many variations and confusions made me mentally unable over the years. I wanted to believe Islam but my mind finally woke up from the comma. Here are some of the points I collected;

Where is Allah? sura 57:4 says he is on a throne in a castle the sky. sura 2:115 says he is everywhere, which is quite handy really when you think about it? 14:37 says he is in his house in the kabah. 2:186 says he is "near" wherever you need him. 50:16 says he is closer to a man than his jugular vein! so, in summary, Allah is on a throne in a castle in the sky? but, also, everywhere! but his home in the kabah. and hes also in my throat! but never ever forget... sura 2:1 says there is no doubt and no confusion in quran!

More confusion in this contradictory and inconsistent? Are all the prophets equal? 2:285 "we make no distinction between the apostles" 2:253 "of all the apostles we have some favoured over others". 21:58 "so he smashed up their idols, without exception of the biggest" 19:49 "so he left them be, and the idols they worshipped". Allah forgive everything? 39:53 "... surely god forgives all sins" 4:116 "god does not forgive that compeers be ascribed to him". How long is a single day for allah? 22:47 "... verily a day for the lord is equal by your reckoning to a thousand years" 70:4 "to whom the angels and the soul take a full day to ascend, whos length is equal to fifty thousand years".

How many angles helped muhammad win the battle of Badr? 3:124 "is it not sufficient that your lord should send for your help three thousand angels from the heaven" 8:9 "and remember when you prayed to your lord for help? he heard you and he said "i shall send a thousand angles" 15:8 we never send the angels down save with the purpose (of enforcing their doom".

Was Iblis (satan) and angle? or an evil spirit? 18:50 "he was one of the Jinn (evil spirits) 2:34 remember we asked the angels to bow in homage to Adam? but Iblis, who detained and turned insolent".

Where are the Jinns? are the on earth and cannot reach heaven? 55:33 oh society of jinns and men, cross the bounds of the heavens and the earth if you have the ability? then pass beyond them, but you cannot unless you acquire the law" or are they stuck outside of the earth and cannot get it? 36:6-7 he decked out the nearest heavens with ornaments of stars protecting them against wayward evil spirits" (extra points for noticing that the stars are only ornaments in our near heavens).

How long did it take allah to make the heavens and the earth? 10:3 your lord is god who made the heavens and the earth in six days. 41:9 so do you refuse to believe he created the earth in two days 41:10 he placed firm stabilizers rising above the surface, blessed them with growth and an ingrained the means of growing all food within it, sufficient for all in 4 days" 41:11-12 then had made the heavens... in 2 days. So, if you were paying attention? we started with claim of 6 days. but, if you try very hard you can add 2 and 2 with 4. I not certain beyond doubt, but don't think it makes 6!

What did god use to create man? was it a) 3;59 "dust". or was it b) 19:67 "made adam out of nothing". was it c) 15:26 we made that first man from clay. was it d) 16:4 man created from a drop of semen. was it e) 19:2 created man from a blood clot. was it f) 21:30 we made man, and every living thing, from water.

How long did allah take in the creation. you'll remember above it might have been 6 days, or maby 8? 7:51 says creation took 6 days. But 2:117 says "the creator of the heavens and the Earth from nothing in an instant. He only had to say "be" and it is" so... 8 days? 6 days? Instantaneous? but remember now children... there is no confusion in the Quraan!